5.1. Adding an About Panel

Within every application menu is a menu item titled About My Application, where My Application is the name of your application. This is commonly known as the About Menu, and clicking it opens an About Panel. The About Panel typically conveys important information about the application (imagine that!). For many years, developers created their own About Panel (sometimes also called an About Box or About Window), but Apple has standardized this use. Following Apple's guidelines, an About Panel can display the following information about an application:

• Name or title: The name of the application

• Icon: The application's icon

• Version number: A number, such as 1.0, indicating which version this is

• Copyright date: A copyright note stating the year that the application copyrighted

• Credits: Other pertinent information about the application, which usually includes names of the team that built the application and other acknowledgements